In the older time of broad hearths and open fireplaces, of wood -fires, huge backlogs, brilliant flames, and glowing coals, there was occasionally a commotion in the burning pile, which would shoot out sparks, sometimes singly and sometimes almost in a shower, lending a new brightness and activity to the scene, even though evanescent. At the forge, too, where the hammer comes down on the redhot iron, brilliant, glittering particles follow the blow, and go out, only to be repeated with each successive stroke.
Sparks are of very small value in the economy of nature, and are very short-lived; and yet sometimes a spark originates a steady flame, where all was darkness before. I offer these detached thoughts with the hope that some of them may, for a moment if no longer, faintly illuminate the path for a searcher after Truth, and show the way to better things.
It is astonishing how gleams of light sometimes shine through the darkness in an unexpected way, and it is astonishing how our enemies occasionally give the most unqualified testimony in favor of truths, which frequently are comprehended only in part by adherents of Christian Science. There is a recent illustration, exactly in point. A gentleman who was at one time very ardent in his professions of loyalty to the Science,—but who is now doing his utmost against both it and its Founder, and who would destroy both if he could,—says, in a recent publication, that the doctrine is " the more effective in proportion as its devotees religiously keep it pure, by abstaining from all reading and hearing of aught but the pure truth, or Christian Science, as it is designated by them."
